


poly-A tail

by owlinaminor



Series: author's favorites [6]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Study Group, Trans Character, Underage Drinking, fem!otabek altin, fem!yuri plisetsky, they're all girls basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 07:09:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9061852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: poly-A tail: a long string of RNA containing only adenine bases, added to the 3' end of a pre-mRNA transcript to protect it from degradation as it travels through the cytoplasm.  when depicted in textbooks, the structure is written as simply a long string of A's.(or: in which yulia plisetskaya forms a study group, makes a friend, and learns that finals week is about more than taking tests.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to my dad - when i mentioned i was writing a fic based on my genetics class, he told me he'd be interested in reading it. then, i explained that i was only using my genetics class as a premise to write about a developing romantic relationship, and his interest quickly waned.
> 
> a note on the au: this takes place at barnard/columbia, because turns out it's very easy to write about My College, Where I Go To School. yulia is a sophomore; otabeka and mila are juniors; victoria's a prof; yuuri's a grad student; etc. all settings are very closely based on real places. and they're all girls, because I Am Gay.
> 
> and thanks to [becky](https://twitter.com/dickaeopolis) for betaing, as always.

**From: Otabeka Altin  
10:34 pm**

_Hello._

Yulia sees the message somewhere past 2 o’clock in the morning, in a break between scrolling through her Facebook feed.

Someone had the idiotic idea of adding Victoria to the new campus meme group, and she’s been making starter packs non-stop, so it’s obviously Yulia’s duty as her lab assistant to let her know exactly what she’s doing wrong.  Her hand slipped, she accidentally clicked on the top of her screen instead of the side, and opened her messages – revealing one new request from a girl she doesn’t know.  

Yulia clicks on the girl’s photo; she’s stony-faced, with a strong jaw, deep brown eyes, and short hair chopped in an undercut.  She reminds Yulia of a character in an old Russian folktale – a princess, maybe, one who refuses to marry anyone who cannot best her in a duel.  And she seems familiar... but no, if Yulia had met this girl, she definitely would have remembered her.

 _Two mutual friends,_ Facebook says.   _Mila Babicheva and Sara Crispino._

Yulia is tempted to call Mila and demand to know how she’s friends with a girl so gorgeous (and gay, she _has_ to be gay) and didn’t introduce her.  But if she called Mila, she’d probably have to deal with her grossness with Sara, and it’s too late at night for that.

So instead, Yulia settles for accepting the request, and sending back:

**To: Otabeka Altin  
2:27 am**

_do i know u?_

She’s not expecting an answer particularly soon – sure, Columbia students are the most sleep-deprived in the country, but not everyone has as fucked up a sleep schedule as she does.  Yulia returns to evaluating Victoria’s latest meme – a starter pack for Yuuri Katsuki, a graduate student who works in Victoria’s lab and helps out as a TA.  The post caption has no less than twenty-two hearts.

Yulia is trying to come up with a metaphor that adequately expresses her disgust when –

**From: Otabeka Altin  
2:31 am**

_We’re in the same genetics class._

The same… that can’t be true.  Yulia never skips that class!  It’s actually the only class she never skips, because it’s taught by Victoria, and Victoria would make her centrifuge samples for hours if she didn’t show up.  It’s a terrible class, because Victoria is about as good at lecturing as she is at creating memes (that is to say, she should be put in remedial training for both), and it’s at ten o’clock in the morning, which is far from Yulia’s most productive time of day.  But she still finds it hard to believe that someone as good-looking as Otabeka Altin could have been in the class all semester without her noticing.  Maybe Mila is right, and she does need glasses.

**From: Otabeka Altin  
2:33 am**

_You sit in the front row every class, and you always ask questions even when everyone else is lost.  I know you were the one who got a perfect score on the second midterm._

Yulia runs her fingers through her hair – damn, she needs a haircut – and twists it up into a loose bun before answering.

**To: Otabeka Altin  
2:34 am**

_i work in victorias lab_

_shed give me hell if i didnt get a perfect score_

_its not that impressive_

**From: Otabeka Altin  
2:34 am**

_Victoria?_

Yulia huffs out a laugh – it’s hard to imagine Victoria as anyone but _Victoria,_ the outspoken, over-expressive, absolutely brilliant developmental geneticist that Yulia has known and resented since she was twelve, but to most students in the class, she’s just another weird-ass professor at this weird-ass school.  She gets a glare from the girl sitting across the desk from her – probably _actually studying_ , unbelievable – and shoots back a smirk before replying:

**To: Otabeka Altin  
2:35 am**

_prof nikiforova_

**From: Otabeka Altin  
2:35 am**

_I see._

Yulia wonders what Otabeka is doing right now.  Is she sitting in a floor lounge somewhere, answering messages in between pages of last-minute reading?  Or is she lying in bed, about to fall asleep, the brightness of her phone the only illumination in a dark room?  Or is she procrastinating in a Butler study room – maybe even the very study room Yulia is in right now?

Yulia lifts her head from her laptop and scans the room, just in case.  She sees dim fluorescent lights, dark mahogany tables, aging books lining the side of the room like old oak trees along an estate’s driveway.  There are two girls across the table from Yulia, a couple of guys near the end bent over a problem set, someone in an oversized sweatshirt asleep on their copy of Machiavelli.  No Otabeka.  Oh, well – it was worth a shot.

**From: Otabeka Altin  
2:36 am**

_The reason I messaged you is that I was wondering if you would help me study for the final._

**To: Otabeka Altin  
2:36 am**

_like… a study group?_

**From: Otabeka Altin  
2:37 am**

_Yes._

Yulia doesn’t form study groups.  She doesn’t mesh well with collaborative learning.  When she’s forced into group projects, she either takes charge and does all the work, or completely bails and leaves her partners to handle it.  She likes studying alone, spending long hours in Butler with nothing but the dingy whiteness of her notebooks and the dull buzz of two late-night cups of coffee to keep her company.  She is the last person anyone should ask for help studying – watching her explaining complex concepts is like watching a kitten dropped into a bath, nothing but aggravating and painful for everyone involved.

But Yulia looks at Otabeka’s icon, in the messaging app – at the little green circle marking her as “online” – at the uncertain _“I was wondering if”_ , all correct grammar and punctuation – and despite her best intentions, she types out:

**To: Otabeka Altin  
2:38 am**

_sure, y not_

_i have a calc final monday morning that i really need to focus on tho_

A response comes quickly, but not quite quickly enough to quiet Yulia’s heart, which is beating so loudly she’s surprised the girl across the table doesn’t glare at her again.

**From: Otabeka Altin  
2:38 am**

_Monday afternoon works for me._

Yulia grins at her laptop screen - then feels the smile slip as she wonders what Otabeka will think when she realizes that Yulia is terrible at explaining things to anyone besides herself.  Wonders what Otabeka will think when -

On Monday.  Not right now, when Yulia has other studying to do.  She pushes brown eyes and perfect grammar out of her head, and opens up her calc notebook. 

* * *

 “Otabeka Altin?” Mila says.  “Yeah, I know her.”

Yulia leans forward so fast, she nearly knocks her container of mozzarella sticks off the table.  (Which would be a damn shame – she spent an hour waiting in line for those mozzarella sticks.  Or, well, ten minutes.  Same thing.)

“Not so _loud_ ,” she hisses.

Mila laughs, grinning around the straw of her banana smoothie.  “Otabeka Altin!” she shouts, loudly enough to wake first-years napping four floors up.  A few people sitting nearby stare at her, but quickly turn back to their omelets and curly fries.  It’s three o’clock in the afternoon on the Saturday in the middle of finals – most of these students have probably seen stranger.

“So, what do you want to know about this kid?” Mila asks.

“Forget it,” Yulia mutters, looking down.  She takes a bite of mozzarella stick – it’s warm and cheesy, almost delicious enough to make her forget her embarrassment.

“Forget it?  Really?  But you seemed so insistent – oh, _Yulochka,_ you’re bright red.”

Yulia finishes her mozzarella stick, then chomps down on two more.  It’s too early for her to be ridiculed like this.  (Yeah, it’s three o’clock in the afternoon, but it’s _finals._  She woke up, like, half an hour ago.  She doesn’t deserve this.)

“Just tell me what you know about her,” Yulia tells her mozzarella sticks.  She only has three more – those JJ’s Place chefs are getting stingier and stingier every time she visits this place.  She should make a meme about it - preferably involving that annoying kid in her calc class who actually _calls herself_ JJ.  What a weirdo.

“Well, I don’t know her that well,” Mila says.  “We were in the same Lit Hum class, freshman year – us and Sara.  Oh, my God, Yulia, did I tell you, Sara did the _cutest thing_ last week –”

Yulia shoots her a look – she’d rather lick the floor of a freshman dorm bathroom than hear about some cute thing Mila’s girlfriend did last week, and Mila knows it.

Mila sighs, then returns to the subject.  “Sorry, sorry.  We were talking about Otabeka.  So, yeah – she was pretty smart, I think.  She always did the reading, but you’d never know it most of the time because she’d just sit off to the side and take notes.  Unless she had something clever to say – and if she had something clever to say, everyone would shut up and pay attention, because it’d be something _really_ clever.  And she always dressed really well – like, leather pants, and high boots, and these gorgeous sweaters.  Once, I asked her if I could feel the sleeve of her sweater, and it was _so soft,_ it was like I was touching a cloud.  A _cloud,_ Yulia… Yulia?  Are you okay?”

Yulia wonders if Otabeka will wear a sweater that feels like a cloud at their study session on Monday.  If she will, perhaps, let Yulia feel her sleeve.  Or maybe even her hair – her hair that looks so _perfect_ , hanging over one eye as though it was engineered that way by an elite team of scientists working on designing the most beautiful girl alive.  Yulia fell asleep last night thinking about that hair, and she woke up this morning (or technically, this afternoon) with the precise color of Otabeka’s dark mahogany eyes dancing in her mind.  It’s not even that she went through Otabeka’s entire Instagram twice last night – it’s that she went through it _three more times_ today to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.

She has never been less okay in her entire life.

“Yulia, do you have a _crush_ on this girl?” Mila asks.

 _“W-what?”_ Yulia stammers.  “That’s _ridiculous!  Me?_  Have a _crush?_  I can’t believe you would even _suggest –”_

“Aw, Yulochka, you’re bright red!” Mila exclaims.  She reaches across the table and musses up Yulia’s head – which she would be pissed about, if not for the fact that she hasn’t showered in three days.

Yulia huffs and crosses her arms.  She definitely needs more mozzarella sticks.  Possibly some chicken tenders, too.  She stands up and heads for the serving area without another word to Mila.

Unfortunately, by the time she gets back, her friend has not moved on to another topic.  Mila is sitting in wait, grinning like an econ major who just got an internship at Goldman Sachs.

“So, how do you know Otabeka?” she wants to know.

Yulia feels all of the warmth and cheesiness go out of her second round of mozzarella sticks right then and there.

“We’re in the same genetics class,” she admits, sitting down sullenly.  She _could_ just take her food and head to Butler, but then Mila would pester her with incessant text messages until she told her everything.  Might as well get this torture over with now.

“Oh, Nikiforova’s class?” Mila says.  “Then how come you’ve never mentioned her before?  I thought you loved that class.  Or at least went to it regularly.”

Yulia shrugs.  “I sit in the front, she sits in the back.  I never noticed her before.”

“Then why did you notice her now?  What changed?”

“She wants to… _formastudygroup.”_

“Sorry, Yulia?  What was that?”  Mila leans in, baring her teeth.  She reminds Yulia of a shark, sometimes – never showing any mercy.

“I said, she wants to _form a study group,”_ Yulia repeats.

Mila stares at her.  Yulia glares back, as though to say, _What?  You got a problem?_

“Form a study group?   _You?_  That’s like asking Georgia to lead a seminar on how to successfully get over your ex.”

“Well, she offered,” Yulia says, “and I said yes.”

Mila shakes her head, auburn curls bouncing from side to side.  “Good luck on your genetics final,” she tells Yulia.  “You’re gonna need it.”

“You know I got a perfect score on the midterm, right?”

“Does _Otabeka Altin_ know you got a perfect score on the midterm?”

_“Shut up.”_

* * *

When Yulia gets out of her calc final, she has five new messages.

The first two are from Yuuri, reminding her that there’s still time for her to ask questions about the material on the genetics final.  (Yulia would rather dive into the Hudson River naked.)  The second two are from Mila, wishing her luck with her “group study session.”  (The quotation marks are Mila’s, not Yulia’s.)  And the last one… is from Otabeka.

**From: Otabeka Altin  
11:49 am**

_I got us a seminar room in LeFrak.  118._

It takes Yulia a moment to remember what LeFrak is.  It’s the fancy name for Barnard’s temporary library, a space in Barnard Hall filled with desks and chairs to give students who hate Columbia’s libraries somewhere to study while Barnard’s new library is under construction.  Yulia doesn’t think she’s been there more than once since the beginning of the semester – it closes at midnight, which really does not mesh well with Yulia’s study schedule.

**To: Otabeka Altin  
12:06 pm**

_y lefrak?_

Otabeka replies as quickly as she had a couple nights ago – and something in Yulia’s chest warms as she watches the little “message in progress” bubble on her screen, as though she just ate a JJ’s place mozzarella stick.

**From: Otabeka Altin  
12:06 pm**

_I like LeFrak.  The seminar rooms have huge white-boards and are easy to stake out.  And it’s right above Hewitt._

Yulia had no idea any Columbia students ate at Hewitt – it’s a Barnard dining hall, tucked into the basement of Barnard Hall.  Most Columbia students don’t even know how to _find_ it.  But, as Yulia is quickly learning, Otabeka is the exception to a lot of things she used to think were true.

**To: Otabeka Altin  
12:07 pm**

_ill be there in ten_

_just gonna go to the diana and grab lunch_

**From: Otabeka Altin  
12:07 pm**

_If you could get me curly fries, that would be wonderful._

* * *

Yulia pauses at the door of LeFrak 118, two cardboard containers of curly fries carefully balanced atop a flatbread pizza box.

She’s not really sure what the protocol is, here.  Does she knock?  Does she kick the door open?  Does she call Otabeka?  Yulia doesn’t know, and she hates not knowing – hates it almost as much as she hates how _nervous_ she is right now, as though she’s about to take another final.

She shakes herself, reminds herself that this is just _two acquaintances_ _studying together,_ not an exam, not a date.  Nothing to be nervous about.  Actually, she’s not nervous, she’s just… jittery.  Because she had a lot of coffee this morning.  Yeah.

Yulia raises her right hand and knocks twice on the seminar room door.

The door opens slowly, releaving Otabeka – perfect hair, dark mahogany eyes, strong jawline, and all.  She’s wearing black leggings, gray Doc Martens, and a dark green sweater the color of evergreen trees that _does_ look incredibly soft.  And… she’s taller than Yulia imagined.  It’s hard to find girls her height these days, but Otabeka might just have a couple of inches on her.  Yulia hates the tingling feeling that thought sends down her spine, as though she just stuck her finger in an electrical socket.

“The door isn’t locked,” Otabeka says.

“Oh,” Yulia replies.  “Well, I’ll… I’ll know for next time.”

“Right.  Next time.”

For a moment, neither of them moves – an odd, stiff kind of stalemate.  Yulia briefly entertains the notion of turning and bolting to Butler.

But then, Otabeka’s mouth lifts in the tiniest of smiles, like the first rays of golden sunlight peeking over the horizon.  Yulia hates it – because she can’t help but smile back.

“How was your final?” Otabeka asks, moving away into the room.  She’s got her laptop, a couple of notebooks, and a textbook (Yulia had forgotten their class even _had_ a textbook) spread out across the far side of the wide, white seminar table, near a projector screen that takes up most of the back wall.  One of the long side walls is covered with a huge whiteboard, already dotted with terms in a neat, flowing script Yulia assumes is Otabeka’s.

“My what?” Yulia says.  She stands in the doorway for another moment, then enters slowly, setting her food down.  The door swings shut behind her.

“Your final?” Otabeka turns to Yulia, the brown in her eyes shaded concerned.  “You said you had one this morning?”

“Oh!  Right, yeah.  Calc four.  It was shit, but I think it went alright.  I finished all the problems, which is more than I can say for most of the class.”  Yulia sits down, shrugs off her jacket, and sticks her feet up on the table.  Her boots are probably tracking dirt, but she doesn’t care – it’s not like there are going to be any classes in this room for the next month.

“That’s good,” Otabeka says.  “I’m sure you did well.”

Her voice is accented – subtly, as though she’s been speaking English for a long time, but didn’t want to let go of her native language.  To Yulia, who has kicked away at her Russian accent since her first day of orientation, the hint of _other_ (Turkish?  Uzbek?  she can’t tell) is surprisingly endearing.

“Thanks,” she tells Otabeka.  “So, what would you like to start with?”

“I was thinking we could start with the new stuff, cancer genetics, then go back and do…”

Yulia looks up as Otabeka trails off.  “What?”

Otabeka is staring at her, dark eyes unreadable.  “You brought me curly fries.”

“Oh.”  Yulia glances down at her hands, still clad in mesh fingerless gloves.  She slips them off and places them on the table in front of her, willing the tips of her ears not to go red.  “You asked me to.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think… Thank you.”  Otabeka takes a seat across the table from Yulia and pulls one of the containers of fries towards her.  

Yulia reaches into the pocket of her sweatshirt and hands over a ketchup packet.  “No problem.  What were you saying before?”

“Right.”  Otabeka picks up a fry, dips it in ketchup, and takes a bite – Yulia tries not to stare at her mouth, tries not to imagine what it might look like wrapped around –

_Genetics.  You’re here to study genetics.  Concentrate._

“I’d like to go back and do some of the older problem sets,” Otabeka is saying.  “I’m worried that I’ve completely forgotten all of the probability rules.  And then we could go over the molecular material?”

Yulia shrugs.  “Sounds good to me.”

“Oh, but – you just had a final, don’t you want a break before we start working?”

Yulia hadn’t thought about that before, but she probably could use a few minutes of downtime before switching from multivariable calculus to molecular genetics.

“Yeah, actually,” she says.  “Just give me, like, fifteen minutes to eat this pizza?”

Otabeka nods, then opens her laptop and starts typing in between continuing to devour her fries.  Yulia opens up her phone and tries to scroll through Twitter, but she can’t stop stealing glances at Otabeka.  What could she be doing?  Re-typing old notes?  Writing an email?  Or maybe messaging one of her friends, telling them how weird Yulia is and how big of a mistake it was to study with her?

“Thank you, again,” Otabeka says suddenly.

“What, for the fries?” Yulia asks.  “It really was no problem, I have a ton of points left.”

Well, she has five points left, but Otabeka doesn’t need to know that.

“No, for helping me study,” Otabeka replies.  “I’m sure I need this review session much more than you do, and you have other work.”

Yulia shakes her head.  “This is my last final, actually.  And I haven’t studied at all yet, so this will be good.  I totally forgot about those problem sets, re-doing them is a great idea.”

Otabeka doesn’t answer, but she smiles slightly – Yulia feels a churning in her gut, and she knows it’s not from her pizza.

“So, cancer genetics,” Otabeka says, standing up.  She erases the whiteboard and writes a header in bright green marker, near the top.  The marker’s lines are smooth and dark – much nicer than Yulia would expect from any Barnard supplies this close to the end of the semester.

“Do the classes in this room never write on the board or something?” Yulia wonders.

“I have no idea,” Otabeka answers.  “I have my own set of Expo markers.”

She keeps writing, unaware of Yulia frantically texting behind her.

**To: Mila Babicheva  
12:35 pm**

_SHE HAS HER OWN SET OF EXPO MARKERS_

**From: Mila Babicheva  
12:35 pm**

_oooooh yulia_

_does that turn u on_

Yulia resolves not to text Mila for the next four hours.  Minimum.

* * *

Their study session starts off slowly.

Yulia isn’t used to studying with other people – the closest she ever came was sitting at the same table in Butler as Mila and Sara, but that only ever lasted about half an hour before Yulia got fed up with their incessant cuddling.  (How the two of them get any work done is beyond her.)  She assumes that Otabeka wants her to explain concepts while Otabeka takes notes, like some kind of private discussion section, but they quickly realize that tactic is wholly unsuccessful – Yulia takes too long going through basic information that Otabeka already knows, then gets disoriented and has a hard time answering Otabeka’s questions on more individual details.

But then, halfway in the middle of Yulia’s explanation of microarray analysis, Otabeka comes up with a new idea: “What if I explain, and you correct me in the places where I don’t know something?”

Yulia is skeptical at first.  “Would that work?”

“It’d work better than what we’re doing now.  And besides, the whole test is structured so that we have to write explanations, right?  So this would be good practice.”

Otabeka has a point there, Yulia has to admit.  Victoria’s exams are all short answer questions, no multiple choice or fill in the blank – her students are expected to be able to explain all the complex microbiological concepts they went over during the semester.  She gives a lot of partial credit (too much partial credit, if you ask Yulia), but that doesn’t make the tests any less intimidating.

“Okay then,” Yulia says.  “Explain microarray analysis.”

She erases the board completely and sits down, fixing her gaze expectantly on Otabeka.

Otabeka stands up and – to Yulia’s surprise and abject horror – peels her sweater off.  Underneath it, she’s wearing a silver tank top that fits tightly across her chest – and reveals her incredibly toned arm muscles.  Yulia thought _she_ was in pretty good shape, but clearly she needs to go to the gym more.  She wonders if she could bounce a penny off those biceps – she wonders if Otabeka would let her try, if she asked –

She wonders how the _fuck_ she’s supposed to concentrate now.

“What?” Otabeka asks, catching her staring.  “It’s warm in here.”

“Right.  Yeah.  Warm.”  Yulia swallows hard and focuses her attention on the whiteboard.  “Just – um.  Explain the thing.”

“I can put my sweater back on, if this makes you uncomfortable?”

“No, I’m fine.  Fine.  Just explain the thing.”

“Microarray analysis?”

“Yeah.  That thing.”

Otabeka is able to explain the thing fairly well, as it turns out.  She and Yulia get into a brief argument over whether cDNA is double-stranded or single-stranded (Otabeka wins, which concerns Yulia more than she lets on), but other than that, this portion of the review runs much more smoothly than their session has so far.  So, Yulia listens to Otabeka explain the two papers they had to read, helps her out with a few missing details, and then they move on to reviewing earlier parts of the course.

“I haven’t touched these problem sets at all,” Otabeka admits, peering at the first of four pdfs open on her laptop.

“Then touch them.  Now.  Go.”  Yulia points at Otabeka, then at the whiteboard.  She realizes, somewhat belatedly, how she must look – with her legs up on the desk, her arms behind her head, and her hair pulled into a high ponytail, she must seem like some kind of empress, giving orders to a servant.  But if Otabeka notices, she doesn’t say anything – she just chooses a problem and starts running through it on the whiteboard, writing down the main terms in dark blue.

“Assume that ear length in mice is a simple genetic trait,” Otabeka reads, “with short ears being recessive to long ears.  You cross two heterozygous mice to generate F1 mice.  From the F1, you pick two mice with long ears and cross them.  If you get two F2 mice, what is the probability that at least one of them has short ears?

“Okay, so let’s say long is big L, and short is little l.  You start by crossing LL with ll, so all the progeny are Ll.  Then you cross _those_ , and you get one half Ll, one quarter LL, one quarter ll.”  Otabeka talks as she writes – and Yulia admires the tan of her arm against the pale white of the board, the neat curves of her l’s, the smoothness of her voice.  She wonders if Otabeka always speaks like this, so steady, so even.  She wonders what Otabeka would sound like if she got angry – if she got excited – if she got –

“Yulia?”

Yulia blinks rapidly, dispelling her traitorous thoughts.   _Genetics.  Concentrate on genetics._

“I’m paying attention, sorry,” she says quickly, waving her hand in the air as though to dispel Otabeka’s concerns.  “Go on.”

“Okay, so then, from the F1 generation, you take two long-eared mice.  Both of them have a two-thirds probability of being Ll, and a one-third probability of being LL.  So there are four possible crosses.”  Otabeka draws out a chart on the board, diagramming potential crosses – something Yulia vaguely remembers from earlier in the semester.  Shit, she really did need to study this stuff.  But something from Otabeka’s work seems off – she can’t quite put her finger on what it is.

“And then, they want the probability that at least one of two offspring has short ears, so it would be the probability that one has short ears squared.  Right?” Otabeka pauses, marker halfway to the whiteboard, to look at Yulia.

Yulia shakes her head slowly, trying to figure out what the other girl is doing wrong.  “I don’t think so – isn’t there a rule for this?  Something about one minus?”

“One minus… Shit, you’re right,” Otabeka realizes.  “The non-exclusive or rule.”

“When two events are mutually exclusive, the probability that one will occur is one minus the probability that the other will occur,” Yulia supplies, reading from her notes.  “So the probability that at least one of the two offspring has short ears is one minus the probability that both of them have long ears.”

“Which is the probability that one of them has long ears squared,” Otabeka continues.  “Which is –”

Yulia cocks her head, uncertain.

“Shit, that’s not right, is it.”  Otabeka’s hand drops from the whiteboard, fingers coming to rest on her right hip.  Her fingers are long, calloused – Yulia wonders what they would feel like, intertwined with her own –

_Focus, Yulia.  Focus._

“I remember doing this problem,” Otabeka says slowly, staring at her unfinished calculations as though willing the solution to appear before her.  “I remember that I got it wrong.  Something like – you don’t use all of the potential crosses.  I asked Professor Nikiforova about it in office hours, and she explained it to me, but I don’t remember what it was – I’m not sure I ever fully understood it.”

She runs her left hand through her hair, letting out a small sigh of frustration.  And Yulia wonders – but she forces herself not to wonder, forces herself to think about crosses and probability and the non-exclusive or rule.   _You don’t use all of the potential crosses.  At least one of the offspring has short ears.  Both of the parents could be homozygous or heterozygous._

“I remember!” she shouts.  Otabeka turns around and stares, wide brown eyes blinking slowly as though she’s a bemused cow.

Yulia gets up and nearly knocks over her chair in her haste to get to the board.  “You only use this first cross to find the end probability, because there’s only a chance of the offspring having short ears if both of the parents are heterozygous,” she explains.  She uncaps one of Otabeka’s markers and draws a circle around the numbers for emphasis.

Otabeka looks at the board for a long moment, then nods.  She picks back up her marker and writes out the solution, talking as she goes.  “The probability of both of the offspring having long ears is three-fourths squared – so, nine-sixteenths.  Then the probability of at least one having short ears is one minus that – so, seven-sixteenths.  And then you multiply _that_ by the probability of the cross, which is four-ninths, to get … seven-thirty-sixths.  Is that it?”

“Yeah, that’s it exactly!  Beka, you got it!”  Yulia feels a grin spread across her face, in tandem with the warmth spreading in her chest.  It takes a moment for her to label this emotion as _pride_.

She wonders why she’s feeling proud now – she never felt like this when figuring out concepts for herself, or getting back high test scores, not even when she aced Victoria’s second midterm.  And she wonders how Otabeka is feeling – she’s standing still, turned to the board, not looking at Yulia –

But then, Otabeka turns.  She turns, and the expression on her face is one of soft wonder that reminds Yulia of how Sara had looked when she saw snow for the first time.

“Beka,” Otabeka says quietly.  “You called me Beka.”

_Oh._

Yulia had – she hadn’t even realized.  Her face is going red, she knows.  She ducks her head in a half-ditched attempt to hide it.

“Sorry,” she says.  “I didn’t mean to.”

“No, don’t apologize.  You can… keep calling me that.  If you want.”

Yulia looks up – just in time to catch a hint of pink gracing Otabeka’s cheeks.

“Yeah,” Yulia says.

“Okay,” Otabeka replies.  She clears her throat – Yulia follows the motion along her neck, smooth and graceful – and realizes suddenly just how _close_ they’re standing, one on each side of the whiteboard, barely a foot apart.  If she took just one step further, if she lifted her hand, she could –

_Focus, Yulia._

She sits down before she can let herself get distracted any further.

“So, the next problem…”

* * *

Yulia learns many things about Otabeka, during that long Monday afternoon.

She learns that Otabeka is able to calculate sums in her head almost faster than a calculator, but can’t draw a simple flower to save her life.  She learns that Otabeka always carries a pack of cinnamon gum in her backpack, and chews a piece to help her focus.  She learns that Otabeka likes to take off her boots and pad across the carpet in thick socks, quiet as a panther creeping across the forest floor.  She learns that Otabeka always knocks with three precise raps, even though the door is unlocked, to alert Yulia to her presence when she returns from the bathroom.  She learns that Otabeka’s favorite color is purple, but she rarely uses that color of marker, because she likes to save it as a reward for finishing the last problem in a set.

Yulia knows she’s supposed to be studying genetics – relearning epistasis and sex linkage and a hundred other small topics that she might be tested on tomorrow – but she can’t help thinking that these little quirks of Otabeka’s, these habits and mannerisms, are what will stick in her mind.  She might be able to get an A on her genetics final, but she’d rather remember the sound of Otabeka’s voice, low and smooth, as she talks through a solution, or the look of Otabeka’s face as she laughs, eyes closed and head thrown back, or the feeling of sparks running up Yulia’s arm when her fingers brush Otabeka’s.

It occurs to Yulia that the tail end of finals season is probably the worst time she could possibly have a romantic crisis.  She’s almost mad at the universe for letting this happen to her – but then, she remembers that the universe also created Otabeka Altin, and she has to forgive it.

**From: Mila Babicheva  
7:13 pm**

_so have u guys made out yet_

Mila is much less easy to forgive than the universe.

Yulia has to look at the message again, though, just to check the time.  There’s no way it’s seven o’clock already – it feels as though she just got to LeFrak 118.  But then, she’s barely checked her phone all afternoon…

“Yulia?” Otabeka asks, pausing in the linkage map she’s working on.  (Yulia ignores the way her breath hitches at hearing Otabeka say her name.)

“Did you realize that it’s already after seven?” Yulia says.

“Yes,” Otabeka replies.  “I figured I could grab us dinner once we finish this last problem set.”

“Oh.”

Yulia is used to being fully in control of the situations around her.  She likes dictating exactly what will happen, and when – it’s why she enjoys doing research, setting up controlled experiments that will lead to a set of predetermined outcomes, while simultaneously pushing at the boundaries of the known scientific world.  But there’s something nice about giving another person control, even for an afternoon – something about Otabeka makes Yulia feel safe, steady, as though there’s finally a net beneath the tightrope she’s been walking for her entire life.

They finish the last problem set, and Otabeka grabs them both dinner from Hewitt while Yulia holds the room.  Otabeka heads downstairs around seven-thirty, and returns soon after with a container full of pizza, two cups of coffee, and six brownies carefully wrapped in paper napkins.  Their conversation flows naturally as they eat, ranging from their professors’ fashion senses (Victoria’s is by far the most ridiculous) to the new campus meme group (Otabeka has somehow managed to avoid it up to now, and her reactions to the jokes spur Yulia into a fit of almost uncontrollable laughter.)

“Beka – you’re in CC, yeah?” Yulia asks, once she’s decided to cut both of them off from memes for the rest of the night.  CC, or Columbia College, is Columbia’s largest undergrad school; the other three are SEAS (School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, which is for engineers), GS (General Studies, which is for older students from nontraditional backgrounds), and Barnard (which is a women’s college, and where Yulia goes.)  The four schools are supposed to be on even footing, although Barnard is more independent, but it often doesn’t feel that way.  Yulia has taken a couple of classes in CC, and they left her feeling pissed - professors wouldn’t call on her, classmates wouldn’t talk to her, and she got this vibe of _why are you here, you didn’t_ really _get into Columbia, you don’t deserve this._  Of course, she just responded by showing off and acing the class - but she’s still wary of any Columbia kids she can’t personally trust, like Mila and Sara.

Otabeka nods, leading Yulia to continue, “So then, why are you in a Barnard bio class?”

Otabeka shrugs.  “I think it’s interesting.”

“You aren’t, like, a Columbia premed trying to boost her GPA by taking _easier_ Barnard classes?” Yulia presses.  “Because I know people who do that, and they’re scum.”

“Oh, I’m not doing that at all.”  Otabeka finishes her first piece of pizza, then reaches into the container for a second.  “I’m an architecture major.”

Yulia has to actively press her jaw back up against her face to prevent it from dropping.

_“What?!”_

“What?”

“A _CC architecture major?_  In a _Barnard genetics class_? Are you _insane?”_

Otabeka shrugs again.  “Like I said, I think it’s interesting.  I like challenging myself.  What’s the point of going to Columbia if you don’t test your limits?”

“Okay, but…”  Yulia struggles for words.  “It’s at _ten A.M.!”_

“I usually wake up at seven.”

Only the knowledge that there are students _actually studying_ just outside their seminar room keeps Yulia from screaming. 

* * *

 After dinner, their study tactics become markedly less studious.

Yulia and Otabeka are focusing on the second half of the course, now – all of the processes involved with DNA replication, transcription, translation, repair, and regulation.  They try to review the same way that they had when going over cancer genetics, with Otabeka talking through concepts and Yulia correcting her where she doesn’t know something, but it somehow devolves into a game of genetics hangman, in which Yulia quizzes Otabeka on a random protein for every letter she guesses incorrectly.

“PCNA,” Yulia says, after Otabeka has unsuccessfully guessed “T” for the fifth time in as many words.

Otabeka runs a hand through her hair, as though fixing the flow of her undercut will help her remember the term’s meaning.  (It doesn’t, but Yulia appreciates it all the same.)

“Yeah, I have no idea,” Otabeka admits.

“It stands for proliferating cell…” Yulia pauses, then remembers.  “Proliferating cell nuclear antigen.  It’s the eukaryotic version of the beta subunit of DNA polymerase III in prokaryotes – you know, clamps onto the DNA during the elongation part of replication...”

Yulia is going to go on to explain some of the other parts of DNA replication, since this is something they haven’t gone over yet, but then she realizes that Otabeka is staring.

“What?” Yulia asks.

“It’s just… how do you remember all of this stuff?” Otabeka asks.

Yulia shrugs.  “I don’t know.  I just do.  It all fits together, the way Victoria explains it, I guess.”

“I found her lectures really hard to follow,” Otabeka confesses.  “She went so fast, and she never wrote anything down, besides a couple of terms now and then… No matter how much I took notes, I always felt like I left class more confused than I went in.”

“Really?”  Yulia pushes her chair closer to the whiteboard, where Otabeka is writing down the definition of PCNA Yulia just gave her.  (They’ve been switching chairs all day – they started on opposite sides of the long table, and now they’re only one seat away from each other.  If Yulia reached out her hand, she could brush Otabeka’s leg.)  “There isn’t a single thing you really remember from the lectures?”

“Well… maybe there’s one.”

“What is it?”

“The poly-A tail.”

Yulia stares at Otabeka, wondering if she’s joking.  The poly-A tail is nothing particularly special, just one of several changes made in between eukaryotic transcription and translation.  She can’t see any reason why Otabeka would remember _that_ over a thousand cooler things.

“Why?” she asks.

“It’s a long string of A’s,” Otabeka explains.  “If you were read it out, you’d just have to scream for, like, ten minutes.”

Yulia holds out for four seconds (she’s counting) before she bursts into snickery laughter.  (She’s usually able to hold herself in check much more than this - maybe it’s because of finals, or maybe it’s because of Beka.   _Fuck.)_

“You’re ridiculous,” she tells Otabeka.   _“Ridiculous,_ Beka.  I’ve never met a more ridiculous person in my entire life – and I’ve met Victoria.”

In response, Otabeka just watches her – but there’s a glimmer of amusement in her dark eyes, like embers starting to catch flame.

Yulia calms down, reminds herself to focus – it’s funny, how the more time she spends with Otabeka, the more difficult that gets.

* * *

They play a few more rounds of Genetics Hangman, but it soon becomes clear that both girls have been thinking about the same subject for too long.  When Yulia gets up and starts drawing a long line of capital A’s across the whiteboard (a physical manifestation of the poly-A tail), Otabeka decides it’s time they call it a night.

The sun has long gone down as they cross campus, the only illumination coming from streetlights and the odd passing car.  It’s bitterly cold, with wind howling off the Hudson, but Otabeka doesn’t seem to be at all affected – she isn’t even wearing a hat.  Yulia huddles inside her coat and steals glances at the other girl, watching as her hair is blown back as though she’s some kind of model.  Their steps match, marching out a steady beat.

Soon enough – too soon, for Yulia’s liking – they reach her dorm.  She stops on the sidewalk, and Otabeka stops with her.  It feels oddly like the end of a date – as though Yulia should expect Otabeka to say she had a great time, then lean in and kiss her.  (Or maybe she’s been watching too many romantic comedy shows with Mila.)

And then, it occurs to Yulia: her dorm is on 119th and Claremont.  There aren’t any Columbia dorms past it.

“Beka… where do you live?” she asks.

“Broadway,” Otabeka replies.

“Broadway?  But isn’t that…”  Yulia trails off, thinking, then says, “Isn’t that on 114th street?”

Otabeka nods.

“Then why did you walk to Elliot with me?”

Otabeka shrugs.

Yulia doesn’t tend to form study groups, but she’s pretty sure this isn’t typical study group protocol.  She takes a step closer, tilting her head to get a better look at Otabeka’s face – Yulia might be imagining it, or it might just be the cold, but she could swear she sees a hint of pink on the other girl’s cheeks.

But before she can ask any more questions, Otabeka says, “Well, good luck on the exam tomorrow,” and turns to head back down Claremont.

Yulia watches her go for a second – wishes it was brighter out so that she had a better view of Otabeka’s rear for a second – before shouting:

“Beka!”

Otabeka turns.  Her profile is caught in the beam of a nearby streetlamp – like an elegant statue, in silver and gray.  For a moment, Yulia forgets what she wanted to say.

“Thank you.”

“Thank _you_ ,” Otabeka says.  “I’m glad that we’re –”

“Friends?” Yulia asks.

Otabeka smiles, soft and shining.  “I was going to say study partners.  But, yeah.  Friends.”

Yulia grins back.

* * *

They aren’t in the same room, the next morning.  The class has been split up into different exam rooms by last name, and Altin is nowhere near Plisetskaya.

Yulia is fully aware of this split, but she can’t help the sinking feeling in her chest when she yanks open the door of the test room and finds no warm brown eyes waiting to greet her.  She’s almost late – she only has two minutes to find a seat, sling off her coat, and take out a couple of pens before the TA (Yuuri Katsuki, just Yulia’s luck) starts passing out papers.

Still, she takes a gamble and pulls out her phone for one quick text:

**To: Beka Altin  
8:59 am**

_good luck_

A reply comes quickly enough for Yulia to see it just before Yuuri calls start.

**From: Beka Altin  
8:59 am**

_You too._

* * *

When Yulia gets out of the exam, she has one new message.

**From: Beka Altin  
11:13 am**

_I just got out.  Now we’re both done with finals.  Want to celebrate?_

Yulia grins, and she barely restrains herself from punching the air.  But then, she remembers –

**To: Beka Altin  
11:28 am**

_yea but i dont have a fake_

A response is quick, and wonderful enough that this time, she _does_ punch the air.

**From: Beka Altin  
11:29 am**

_I wasn’t talking about going out.  I have a bottle of vodka in my room that I’ve been saving for the end of finals._

**To: Beka Altin  
11:29 am**

_i can be at broadway in 10 minutes_

* * *

**From: Mila Babicheva  
** **11:35 am**

_HOW WAS UR LAST FINAL_

_CONGRATS ON BEING DONE_

_WANT TO CELEBRATE ONCE I FINISH THIS ASS PAPER_

 

**To: Mila Babicheva  
11:36 am**

_sorry im hanging out w beka_

 

**From: Mila Babicheva  
11:38 am**

_beka as in … otabeka altin?!_

_yulia that’s twice in 2 days u realize_

_don’t become all social on me_

_or at least tell me ur getting laid_

_god knows u need it_

 

**To: Mila Babicheva  
11:39 am**

_never text me again_

* * *

It’s funny, how time passes faster when Yulia is with Otabeka.

One minute, she’s showing up at Broadway, two gyros from the halal cart on 116th and Broadway in tow, and the next, she’s halfway through a season of Cutthroat Kitchen, criticizing the competitors, and their shitty food tastes better than Alton Brown himself.  Otabeka has a lofted bed, so Yulia’s legs dangle off the edge, her white socks dancing like snowflakes in the afternoon sunlight.  It gets dark fast these days, but the sky lingers on gray-blue for hours – as though it doesn’t want to let go.

Somewhere between episodes eight and ten, Otabeka starts dozing off on Yulia’s shoulder.  She looks softer, asleep – as though the lines of her face have been smoothed out, like a city skyline blurred by rain.  Yulia wonders what she could be dreaming about.  She wonders if Otabeka would notice if she slid a hand into her hair –

_Focus, Yulia._

_No, fuck you.  Finals are over.  Shut the fuck up._

If she slid a hand into her hair –

And it’s _soft_ , it’s so fucking _soft_ , Yulia would want a whole _blanket_ of this if that wasn’t the creepiest thing she’s ever thought of –

_“Dobry denn.”_

Yulia looks down to find brown eyes smiling up at her, warm as melted chocolate.

“H-hi,” she stammers.  And she hates this – she’s never _stammered_ before in her life, not even when Victoria asked if she knew what _scissoring_ was.

“I can give you some of the conditioner I use, if you want,” Otabeka tells her.

“Okay,” Yulia replies.

There’s a pause – she could swear her heart beats at half-tempo – and then she slides off the bed and starts lacing up her boots.

“Where are you going?” Otabeka asks, pushing herself up to sit with her back to the wall.  Her hair is sticking up on one side like the plume of a peacock, which Yulia personally finds ridiculous and terrible.

“Out,” Yulia says.  “Come on.”

Otabeka stares at her.

“This was your last final, right?” Yulia demands.  “So you’re going home tomorrow, right?”

Otabeka nods.

“You can’t spend your last day of the semester cooped up in here.  So, come on.  We’re going out.”

Yulia extends a hand.  Otabeka takes it.  Yulia yanks too hard and both of them tumble to the floor.  (Luckily, Otabeka has a rug almost as soft as her hair.)

* * *

Somehow, they end up in Riverside Park, racing down the tree-lined pathway.  The park is empty, except for a couple of lone joggers and one old woman walking her dog.  With the deep green of the trees illuminated by the soft yellow of the streetlamps, Yulia thinks it looks like the landscape of a fairy tale – she’s expecting a castle to appear out of the fog any moment now, with turrets and banners and balustrades.

When Yulia first saw Otabeka, she was reminded of a princess.  But now, she thinks Otabeka is more like a knight – strong and noble, willing to fight for her convictions, always challenging herself to newer and greater quests.  And she’s solid, she’s steady, she’s like one of the old oak trees Yulia is running past – she’s nothing like Yulia, always so volatile, like a match waiting to be struck.  Yulia wonders what Otabeka sees in her – why she wanted to hang out with her after the final, why she wanted to study with her at all.  

The park is empty, the park is quiet, the park is still.  Yulia and Otabeka are free to swerve and twirl and leap, their movements falling into each other’s like an erratic dance.  They’re not drunk any more – they gave up on Otabeka’s bottle of vodka hours ago – but they’re not quite sober.  Something about the soft light and the cold air and the way their breaths form small clouds like smoke billowing up – it’s reality heightened, a fairy tale that leapt off the pages of a storybook and danced to life.

Yulia runs down the path to the Hudson, and Otabeka follows barely a half-step behind.  They slide to a stop at the railing and stand looking out at the lights.  Yulia knows it’s just New Jersey, on the other side of the river – just cheap restaurants and dingy strip malls and overpriced casinos – but from here, it looks like a fleet of stars fallen to earth.

“Yulia,” Otabeka says.

Yulia’s never been one for poetry, but she wants to write sonnets for how her name sounds in Otabeka’s voice – how it sounds like music, low and lyrical and breathtaking.

“Beka,” she replies.

“Are you a dancer?”

“I… I used to take ballet lessons, when I was little,” Yulia says.  “But I haven’t for a while.”

The _why do you ask_ goes unsaid – Yulia trusts that Otabeka will explain soon enough.  And that realization – that she trusts Otabeka – comes quiet as a wisp of wind, heavy as an old oak.

“I’ve been wondering that since the first time we met,” Otabeka tells her.

Yulia turns – looking from the lights to Otabeka.  (If she’s being honest, the second is a much better view.)  “The first time we met?”

Otabeka turns to her, face unreadable in the soft light.  “You don’t remember?”

Yulia shakes her head – her breath feels short, suddenly, and she doesn’t think it’s because of the cold.

“Mila and Sara had a party, early last year,” Otabeka explains, quiet and intense.  “They invited me.  And you were there – I remember watching you dance, and thinking you were beautiful.  But you had such a sad look on your face, such a lonely look.  I thought you were like a soldier – carrying on even though you were lonely, dancing to make the people around you happy.”

_A soldier._

Yulia has always been called _delicate_ , always been called _lovely._

She wonders if Otabeka could somehow know that Yulia’s grandfather survived the gulags, wonders if Otabeka could somehow know that her parents insisted she learn to march on her own, wonders if Otabeka could somehow know that every morning she fights to strap on a bra she was told never could fit –

“And now?” Yulia demands, letting her unanswered questions hang in the air like hailstones waiting to drop.  “What do you think now?”

“I think…” Otabeka’s breath hitches – and Yulia hopes it’s not because of the cold.  “I still think you are beautiful.  But I don’t think you are lonely.”

_I’ve felt less lonely these past two days than the whole rest of my life._

Yulia reaches down and grips Otabeka’s hand.  It’s warm, solid, even through two pairs of gloves.

“Yulia,” Otabeka says.

“Beka,” Yulia says.

It’s quiet, along the Hudson – as though even the wind has paused in her howling to listen.

“Do you know why the poly-A tail is my favorite concept in all of genetics?”

Yulia almost laughs.  “Because it’s the most relatable – you said that earlier.”

But Otabeka shakes her head.  “Yes – and no.  Because it’s how I feel when you smile at me.”

Yulia thinks in actions – in the toss of her head, the kick of her legs, the lifting of her arms.  She feels before she knows how to say, dances before she knows how to shout.

Kisses before she knows how to say, _me too._

If Otabeka is an oak tree and she’s a match, then the two of them on the edge of the Hudson is a forest fire – a blaze of warmth and light setting Yulia on fire from the inside out.  She spares a moment to think, _suck it, New Jersey,_ before she moves to concentrate on better things – like moving one hand to cradle Otabeka’s cheek and the other to tangle in Otabeka’s hair, and opening her mouth to taste chocolate or peppermint or _Beka_ , and pressing in closer and _closer_ and _not close enough –_

Something rumbles.  Loud and deep and hungry.

For a moment, Yulia is worried they’ll be caught in a freak thunderstorm before she realizes the noise is coming from her own stomach.

 _“Vchort,”_ she curses, detaching one hand to punch the offending organ.

But when she looks up, Otabeka is grinning at her – shining brighter than any star could dare to dream of.

“Let’s go get hamburgers,” she says.

And – well.  Yulia can’t exactly say no.

* * *

They go get hamburgers.

They sit on the same side of the booth.  They intertwine their legs beneath the table.  They laugh at the poor graphics on the menu.  They grin stupidly at the waitress.  They order more food than any two people could eat.

The first item to arrive is an Oreo milkshake – Otabeka whispers to Yulia to check that the coast is clear, then slips a small container out of her jacket pocket and pours in a non-significant amount of leftover vodka.

**To: Mila Babicheva  
9:04 pm**

_i think im in love_

_dont make fun of me_

* * *

**From: Beka Altin  
10:13 am**

_I had a wonderful time last night._

_Thank you for everything._

_And I’m about to board my flight home, but I want to ask…_

_Are you seeing anyone?_

_(In a romantic capacity, I mean.)_

 

**To: Beka Altin  
12:01 pm**

_nobody besides u_

* * *

Two weeks later, Yulia gets a Snapchat.

It’s blurry, almost to the point of being unreadable.  But two things are crystal clear: Beka is smiling, and Beka is wearing a black leather jacket that Yulia is very upset she will have to wait another couple weeks to see in person.  Beka’s posing in front of her laptop screen, her half-smile partially covered by her left hand holding up a peace sign.

The caption reads: _Got a B on the genetics final._

Yulia sends back a picture of herself giving a thumbs-up, then finds it impossible to stop smiling for the rest of the day.

**Author's Note:**

>  _dobry denn_ means "good afternoon" in russian. and yeah - yulia is trans.
> 
> i plan on doing more with this au, so watch this space! or hit me up on [twitter](https://twitter.com/owlinaminor) and/or [tumblr](http://owlinaminor.tumblr.com/).


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